Afghanistan Uses News About Bin Laden to Intensify Its Criticism of Pakistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government escalated its criticism of Pakistan on Wednesday, publicly questioning for the first time how the Pakistanis could ensure the security of their nuclear arms if they did not even know that Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist, had been hiding in a compound in a Pakistani military town less than an hour from their capital.

In comments at a weekly news conference, Gen. Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, echoed points made this week by others in the country, including President Hamid Karzai, but in starker terms. The general specifically criticized Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, which has claimed that it was unaware that Bin Laden had been living for years in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, where American commandos killed him in a raid early Monday.

“If the Pakistani intelligence agency does not know about a home located 10 meters or 100 meters away from its national military academy, where for the last six years the biggest terrorist is living, how can this country take care of its strategic weapons?” General Azimi said.

“How could they be satisfied that their strategic weapons are not in danger?” he asked.

He added that if Pakistan’s intelligence did in fact know the whereabouts of Bin Laden, then “they are playing a double game.”

The specific reference to Pakistan’s intelligence service was an escalation of criticism but reflected a refrain heard here since Bin Laden’s death was announced: the Afghan government has said repeatedly that the roots of the insurgency here are in Pakistan and that the United States has been waging the war in the wrong country.

Mr. Karzai made such remarks somewhat obliquely in speeches shortly after Bin Laden’s death was announced, but his national security adviser, Rangin Spanta, was more explicit.

Photo

Pakistani paramilitary troops patrolled in South Waziristan, along the border with Afghanistan, last summer. Afghans say the insurgency's roots are in Pakistan.Credit
Mohammad Sajjad/Associated Press

“We have to change the geography of the war,” Mr. Spanta said in an interview. “For 10 years, President Karzai has repeated, ‘We have to destroy the sanctuaries, and the sanctuaries are in Pakistan.’ ”

Beyond the rhetoric, however, lies a far more complicated dynamic. Pakistan is resented for its military strength and in recent years for its ability to ratchet up or down the insurgency in Afghanistan through its hosting of terrorist training camps and its financing for jihadist Islamic movements.

But it has also been a refuge for millions of Afghans, and the tribal areas in Pakistan share a common culture and language with people in southern and eastern Afghanistan. By contrast, the north and west of Afghanistan are home to Dari speakers, whose ethnicity is closer to that of Persians and some Uzbeks and Turkmens.

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Despite the animosity and denunciation, there are also deep ties. “We cannot live in permanent war with a neighbor,” said Mr. Spanta, explaining that the tension did not negate the Afghan efforts to work with Pakistan to achieve peace with the Taliban.

“Our offer to Pakistan for cooperation with Pakistan and building peace remains the same,” said Mr. Spanta, despite Bin Laden’s showing up in Pakistan.

General Azimi’s words were, if anything, more restrained than those of a former Afghan intelligence director, Amrullah Saleh, who has closely followed Pakistan’s patterns of support for the Taliban and has long been an outspoken critic.

“If they were able to protect Osama for 10 years, then Mullah Omar and Haqqani are in the ISI safe guesthouse, safe house, whatever you want to call it,” said Mr. Saleh, referring to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban, and members of the Haqqani group, a Taliban offshoot believed to be largely financed by Pakistan’s intelligence service.

“It is time for the United States to wake up to the fact that Pakistan is a hostile state exporting terror,” he said.

Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on May 5, 2011, on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Afghanistan Uses News About Bin Laden to Intensify Its Criticism of Pakistan. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe